Grant Allen

“ The dear old Progenitor can’t be with us many years longer; and when he is gone there will be nothing left me but to watch over little Miss Butterfly and her Don Quixote of a future husband. A man can’t work and slave and compose sonatas for himself alone—the idea’s disgusting, piggish, worthy only of Herbert Le Breton; I must do what I can for the little queen, and for her balloon-navigating Utopian Ernest. Thank heaven, no law prevents you from loving in your own heart the one woman whom you have once loved, no matter who may chance to marry her. ”

“ Down tears, down; a man must be a man; but, oh, what a bitter sight for Arthur Berkeley! And yet, what could he do to mend it? Money they would not take; he dare not even offer it; and he was at his wit’s end for any other contrivance for serving them without their knowledge. He must do what he could; but how he was to do it, he couldn’t imagine.
As he stood there, ruminating bitterly over that poor bare table, he thought he heard sounds above, as of Edie coming downstairs with Dot on her shoulder. He knew she would not like to know that he had surprised the secret of their dire poverty ”

“ It’s quite one thing to say that Ernest has married the daughter of a country grocer down in Devonshire, and quite another thing to say that he has married the sister of Oswald of Oriel, the distinguished mathematician and fellow of the Royal Society. How beautifully that warm brown sail stands out in a curve against the cold grey line of the horizon—a bulging curve just like the swell of Selah’s neck, when she throws her head back, so, and lets you see the contour of her throat, her beautiful rounded throat—ah, that’s not giving her up now, is it?—What a confounded fool I am, to be sure! ”

“ But he won’t! To think that I could have half the Algies and Berties in London at my feet for the faintest encouragement, and I can’t have this one poor penniless Ernest Le Breton, though I go down on my knees before him and absolutely ask him to marry me! That’s the worst of it! I’ve humiliated myself before him by letting him see, oh, ever so much too plainly, that I wanted him to ask me; and I’ve been repulsed, rejected, positively refused and slighted by him! And yet I love him! I shall never love any other man as I love Ernest Le Breton.’
Poor Lady Hilda Tregellis! ”

“ I can die easily enough, heaven knows, without a murmur: but I can’t be disloyal to dear Herr Max, and to all my innate ingrained principles.’
‘Don’t say that, Ernest,’ Berkeley answered gently. ‘Think of Mrs. Le Breton and the baby. The luxury of starvation for the sake of a cause is one you might venture to allow yourself if you were alone in the world as I am, but not one which you ought to force unwillingly upon your wife and children. You’ve been getting a trifle more practical of late under the spur of necessity; don’t go and turn impossible again at the supreme moment. ”

“ Do you suppose I’m so much in love with you, Herbert Walters, that I can’t let you go without wanting to fawn upon you and run after you ever afterwards! Pah! you miserable, pitiable, contemptible cur and coward, are you afraid even of a woman! Go away, and don’t be frightened. I never want to see you or speak to you again as long as I live, you wretched, lying, shuffling hypocrite. I’d rather go back to my own people at Hastings a thousand times over than have anything more to do with you. ”

“ And when I knew you were coming down here to Calcombe, straight from all those grand ladies at Dunbude, I felt sure you’d be disenchanted as soon as you saw me, and never think anything more about me.’
‘Then you liked me, Edie?’ Ernest asked eagerly. ‘You wanted me really to come to Calcombe to see you?’
‘Of course I did, Mr. Le Breton. I’ve liked you from the first moment I saw you.’
‘I’m so glad,’ Ernest went on quickly. ‘I believe all real love is love at first sight. I wouldn’t care myself to be loved in any other way. ”

“ Why, by marrying me.’
‘Never?’ Selah answered, firmly, and with a decided tinge of the old Adam in her trembling voice. ‘Never, Ronald! Never, never, never!’
‘Wait a minute, Selah,’ Ronald pleaded, ‘till you’ve heard the end of what I have to say to you. Consider that when dear Ernest’s gone (oh! Selah, you must excuse me; it makes me cry so to think of it) , there’ll be nowhere on earth for poor little Edie and Dot to go to.’
‘Did ever a man propose to a girl so extraordinarily in all this world,’ Selah thought to herself, angrily. ”

“ The women are just as bad as the men, only in a different way—not always even that; for most of them think only of the Four-in-hand Club and the pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham—things to sicken one. Now, I’ve known selfish people before, but not selfish people utterly without any tincture of culture. I come away from Dunbude, and come down here to Calcombe: and the difference in the atmosphere makes one’s very breath come and go freer. And I look at you, Edie, and think of you beside Lady Hilda Tregellis, and I laugh in my heart at the difference that artificial rules have made between you. ”

“ The Le Bretons were all as mad as hatters, that she knew well; all except the mother, who was a sensible person, and quite rational. But old Sir Owen was a man with the most absurd religious fancies—took an interest in the souls of the soldiers; quite right and proper, of course, in a chaplain, but really too ridiculous in a regular field officer. No doubt Ernest Le Breton had taken up some equally extraordinary notions—liberty, equality, fraternity, and a general massacre, probably; and he had picked up Harry Oswald as a suitable companion in his revolutionary schemes and fancies. ”

“ You don’t know what it is, Edie; you can’t imagine the endless devices for making her feel her dependence and her artificial inferiority that these great people have devised in their cleverness and their Christian condescension. You don’t know what it is, Edie, and I pray heaven you may never know; but I do, for I’ve seen it—and, darling, I CAN’T let you expose yourself to it.’
To say the truth, at that moment there rose very vividly before Ernest’s eyes the picture of poor shy Miss Merivale, the governess at Dunbude to little Lady Sybil, Lynmouth’s younger sister. ”

“ Not a cab was to be seen anywhere, not even a stray hansom crawling home from clubs or theatres; and Ernest set out with a rueful countenance to walk as best he might alone through the snow all the way to Holloway. It is a long and dreary trudge at any time; it seemed very long and dreary indeed to Ernest Le Breton, with his delicate frame and weak chest, battling against the fierce wind on a dark and snowy winter’s night, and with the fever of a great anxiety and a great remorse silently torturing his distracted bosom. ”

“ It’s war to the death between us two now, and no quarter. He’s a good fellow, and I like him dearly; but all’s fair in love and war; and I must go down to Calcombe to-morrow morning and forestall him immediately. Dear little Miss Butterfly, ‘tis for your sake; you shall not be pinched and cramped to suit the Procrustean measure of Ernest Le Breton’s communistic fancies. You shall fly free in the open air, and flash your bright silken wings, decked out bravely in scales of many hues, not toned down to too sober and quaker-like a suit of drab and dove-colour. ”

“ Herbert was right, after all: quite right. Yes, yes, all hope was gone: the environment had finally triumphed.
In the awful self-reproach of that deadly remorse for the acceptance of the blood-money, Ernest Le Breton felt at last in his heart that surely the bitterness of death was past. It would be better for them all to die together than to live on through such a life of shame and misery. Ah, Peter, Peter, you are not the only one that has denied his Lord and Master!
And yet, Ernest Le Breton had only written part of a newspaper leader about a small revolt of the Bodahls. ”

“ Of course it isn’t much worse than school-mastering, I dare say; nobody can say he’s performing a very useful function for the world by hammering a few lines of Ovid into the skull of poor stupid Blenkinsopp major, who after all will only use what he calls his education, if he uses it in any way at all, to enable him to make rather more money than any other tobacco-pipe manufacturer in the entire trade. Still, one does feel for all that, that mere writing of books and papers is a very unsatisfactory kind of work for an ethical being to perform for humanity. ”

“ I’m only an old shoemaker, as I dare say you’ve heard before now; but I know you’ll be the better for crying—women always are—and tears shed on somebody else’s account are never thrown away, my dear, are they?’
Hilda took his hand between hers, and wiping her eyes once more whispered softly, ‘No, Mr. Berkeley, no; perhaps they’re not; but oh, they’re so useless; so very, very, very useless. Do you know, I never felt my own powerlessness and helplessness in all my life so much as I did at that dear, patient little Mrs. Le Breton’s this very morning. ”

“ As he spoke, Herbert Le Breton lounged up quietly from his farther corner towards the little group. ‘Ah, your brother, Ernest!’ said Max Schurz, drawing himself up a little more stiffly; ‘he has found the light already, I believe, but he neglects it; still he is not with us, and he that is not with us is against us. You hold aloof always, Mr. Herbert, is it not so?’
‘Well, not quite aloof, Herr Schurz, I’m certain, but not on your side exactly either. I like to look on and hold the balance evenly, not to throw my own weight too lightly into either stale. ”

“ Ah well, ah well, good sceptical old shoemaker; there are perhaps more things in heaven and earth and in the deep soul of man than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Still, though the avowal shocked and disappointed him a little, the old man could not find it in his heart to say one word of sorrow or disapproval, far less of ridicule or banter, to his dearly loved boy. He felt instinctively, what Herbert Le Breton could not feel, that this sentimental tendency of his son’s, as he thought it, lay far too deep and seemed far too sacred for mere argument or common discussion. ”

“ You’re doing more good by just unobtrusively holding your own opinions here at Pilbury, and getting in the thin end of the wedge by slowly influencing the minds of a few middle-class boys in your form, than you could possibly be doing by making shoes or weaving clothes for the fractional benefit of general humanity. Don’t be so abstract, Ernest; concrete yourself a little; isn’t it enough that you’re earning a livelihood for your dear little wife here, whom I’m glad to know at last and to receive as a worthy daughter? I may call you, Edie, mayn’t I, my daughter? ”

“ As to Ernest and Edie, when they got their own cheque for their quarter of the proceeds, they gazed in awe and astonishment at the bigness of the figure; and then they sat down and cried together like two children, with their hands locked in one another’s.
‘And you’ll get well, now, Ernest dear,’ Edie whispered gently. ‘Why, you’re ever so much fatter, darling, already. I’m sure you’ll get well in no time, now, Ernest.’
‘Upon my word, Edie,’ Ernest answered, kissing her white forehead tenderly, ‘I really and truly believe I shall. ”

“ Berkeley,’ said Lady Hilda Tregellis, as she sat on the centre ottoman in Mrs. Campbell Moncrieff’s drawing-room with Arthur Berkeley talking lightly to her about the nothings which constitute polite conversation in the nineteenth century. ‘Just one evening, any day after the next fortnight? We should be so delighted if you could manage to favour us.’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t, Lady Hilda,’ Arthur answered. ‘My evenings are so dreadfully full just now; and besides, you know, I’m not accustomed to so much society, and it unsettles me for my daily work. ”

“ Le Breton, you must be so awfully learned and all that sort of thing, and no doubt despise ignorant people like myself dreadfully. But you really mustn’t despise me, Mrs. Le Breton, because, you see, I haven’t had all the advantages that you’ve had; indeed, the only clever people I’ve ever met in all my life are your husband and Mr. Arthur Berkeley, except, of course, Cabinet ministers and so forth, and they don’t count, because they’re political, and so very old, and solemn, and grand, and won’t take any notice of us girls, except to sit upon us. ”

“ If an emperor had been introduced to Max Schurz he might have felt a little abashed one minute at the old Socialist’s royal disdain, but he could not have failed to say to himself as he looked at him from head to foot, ‘Here, at least, is a true man.’ So Harry Oswald felt, as the spare grey thinker took his hand in his, and grasped it firmly with a kindly pressure, but less friendly than that with which he had greeted his known admirer, Ernest Le Breton. ”

“ Ah, well, there’s a vast deal of truth, no doubt, in these new hereditary doctrines of Darwin’s and Galton’s that Herbert and Ernest talk about so much; a family’s a family, that’s certain, not a mere stray collection of casual acquaintances. How the likeness runs through the very inmost structure of our hearts and natures! I see in Selah very much what Herbert saw in Selah: Selah sees in me very much what she saw in Herbert. Extraordinary insight into human nature men like Darwin and Galton have, to be sure? And David, too, what a marvellous thinker he was, really! ”

“ Oh, Ronald, when I think of your poor dear brother Ernest’s open unbelief, it makes me tremble for his future, so that I couldn’t rest upon my bed until I’d been to see you and urged you to go and try to save him.’
‘Mother,’ Ronald said with that tone in which he was well accustomed to answering Lady Le Breton’s religious harangues; ‘I don’t think you need feel any uneasiness whatever on dear Ernest’s account, so far as all that’s concerned. What does HE want with saving his soul, mother? “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it.” ”

“ Little Miss Butterfly, your image is stamped there too deep for dethronement, stamped there for ever, indelibly, ineffaceably, not to be washed out by tears or laughter. Ernest Le Breton may take you and keep you; you are his; you have chosen him, and you have chosen in most things not unwisely, for he’s a good fellow and true (let me be generous in the hour of disappointment even to the rival, the goggle-eyed impracticable dragon monstrosity) , but you are mine, too, for I won’t give you up; I can’t give you up; I must live for you still, even if you know it not. ”

“ Arthur Berkeley looked across at him half angrily. ‘My dear Ernest,’ he said, in a severer voice than he often used, ‘the time has gone by now for this economical puritanism of yours. It won’t do any longer. You have to think of your child and of Mrs. Le Breton. Your first duty is to earn a livelihood for them and yourself; when you’ve done that satisfactorily, you may begin to think of the claims of humanity. Don’t be vexed with me, my dear fellow, if I speak to you very plainly. ”

“ Ernest dared hardly glance towards poor Edie, with the tears trickling slowly down her face; but he felt thankful that the broken-hearted old father could derive so much incomprehensible consolation from those cold and stereotyped conventional phrases. Truly a wonderful power there is in mere printer’s ink properly daubed on plain absorbent white paper. And truly the human heart, full to bursting and just ready to break will allow itself to be cheated and cajoled in marvellous fashions by extraordinary cordials and inexplicable little social palliatives. ”